Five Reasons Why Websites Go Down

Website down-times refer to the periods when the site becomes inaccessible to the users. They are basically composed of two types. There’s hard downtime wherein the website goes down completely and the visitors get directed to dead or error pages. Then there is soft downtime wherein only portions of the content are viewable or the entire website exhibits very poor performance that it takes a long time to load all the elements.

Why Do Websites Go Down

Down-times do not just affect SEO rankings but they also create a negative impact on brands. Learn the factors that contribute to a website going down. Identify the causes to minimize its potential damage. Here are five of them.

Server-side

This pertains to the problems that occur in the server.

• Overload. The server has insufficient resources that it cannot handle the sudden spike in traffic. For instance, if you posted a controversial article that piqued the interest of the public and it went so viral that people have started accessing your site all at the same time, expect the server to either slow down or crash.
• Hardware Malfunction. Just like any other machine, the servers are subject to breakage and overheat if used continuously or if it has been up for an extensive period of time.
• Data center Issues. Bad weather conditions may cause the whole data center to be off and lose its main power. A good example was when a severe storm hit Virginia which forced Netflix, Pinterest and Instagram to go offline.
• Maintenance. This may happen whenever there is a need to upgrade certain hardware or update security software. This is a planned outage and usually takes place when there is little traffic to the site like during the middle of the night.

DNS-related

This may be due to an incorrect input of the DNS address, an expired domain name or there has been a change in the IP address from the third-party company and it has not been communicated and echoed to the server.

Programming-related

This usually pertains to errors in codes. A developer may have included a wrong parameter while coding or have forgotten to enclose the comments correctly.

Malicious attacks

This is when hackers maliciously delete or corrupt one of the critical files that render the site inaccessible. They may also install malware programs so they can easily get into your system and steal information or plan a DoS (denial-of-service) or DDos (distributed denial-of-service) to overload the network temporarily.

Scheduled Maintenance

The reasons for this may range from upgrading the database, migrating from one webhost to another or updating contents and elements such that when there is a recent website redesign.